>> Narrator: Live from Austin, Texas, it's the Cube covering South by Southwest 2017. Brought to you by Intel. Now here's John Furrier. >> Welcome back everyone. We're live here at the AI Lounge with Intel, #intelai. This is the Cube, I'm John Furrier. Our next guest is Michelle Bacharach, who's the co-founder and CEO of FINDMINE. retail start up out of New York City, entrepreneur. Welcome to the Cube, thanks for joining us. >> Thank you, thanks for having me. >> So we're at Intel, Intel AI. Pretty packed here, isn't it? >> Yeah. >> Pretty crowded. >> I think it's the cover from the rain. >> Yeah, it's a little rainy here, yesterday was hot. You got a panel here later in the afternoon about AI and retail and convergence, but I want to ask you as an entrepreneur, what got you into starting this company? Was it an itch you were scratching, was it a vision, was it something that you felt compelled to do? Give us the story of FINDMINE. >> Yeah, it's actually a little embarrassing. It kind of sounds like the most selfish reason to start a business. It's because I had a problem I wanted to solve, but I think that's the best way to start a company, honestly, because it means you're going to be a passionate about it, you're going to be a user of your own, whatever you build, and for me, that challenge was I would buy, you know, like my silk bomber here with this big flower on it, and I'd be like yes, I love this, this is great, and I would get it home, but I wouldn't have tried it on with, you know, the pants and the shoes that go with it, so when I'd get it home, I'd be like uh oh, now I have to figure out how to put an outfit together around this to wear it and feel confident. I think a lot of women, especially, have this challenge where we feel pressure to be stylish, but not everyone has that kind of style gene where you can just see something like this and be like oh, I know five ways to wear that. So I struggled with that. I struggled with that when I would buy furniture, even when I would buy things like electronics, like I was really looking into buying a drone at one point. I was like oh, that sounds cool, I could fly a drone, I want to learn that. I found the drone model that I thought I wanted, but then it comes with all this stuff, right, all of these peripherals. They don't all plug in to the drone, so the research involved to figure out how to use one product in combination with another product was way too much work, and I figured someone should be automating that and help a consumer like me answer the question, how do I use this for any product that I might pick up on the shelf. >> And so that was the catalyst. Where is it now today, what's the status of FINDMINE? >> Uh yeah, that's a good question. >> John: Solving all the problems, did it? >> No, not yet, close. No, but, so you know, that was like seven years ago that I started noticing this problem in my personal life, then I researched and found that tons of other people have this problem, customers will buy 170% more if you show them how to use the product that they're buying, but I didn't have the tools to solve it. I have a product management background, but I wasn't a computer scientist, a data scientist to actually execute it, and so I'd met a friend, a friend of mine's husband is a computer scientist, and I sort of like, you know, suckered him in with like this one little project, and then he was like wow, this is really interesting. He cares nothing about fashion, by the way. Like he wears his Columbia sweatshirt and jeans like every single day, so he doesn't really feel the problem the way I do, but what he saw was this opportunity to use artificial intelligence and machine learning and technology to solve this really interesting problem of like, can we make a machine replicate what a human does, which is like figuring out what's stylish, and then that's what hooked him in and he thought the problem and the application of the technology was so cool. So that was, you know, in 2014 we started working on this. Since then, we've, you know, launched a product, we have customers on board. We work with fashion brands and retailers. We produce revenue, we raise money, we have a team now, we have a real office. We're not working out of our apartments anymore, so it's going well. >> So now you're in the middle of this AI world and if you think about the data your problem that you were originally solving actually applies to a lot of things, whether it's learning, healthcare, so it's kind of like the data drives more opportunity to collective intelligence. Is that kind of where this is going? Do you see that trend where it's the data and the algorithms, or the algorithms and the data? >> Yeah, I think that access to the data is the big factor, so in retail there's tons of data, right? Transaction data, product data, user data, all that kind of stuff, and a lot of it is very easily accessible. It's not all like private information, customer information, that you have to guard really closely. Obviously there's some of that because you're doing transactions, so it's credit card information, there's location data, you know gender, all that kind of stuff, but the product data is publicly available. So we didn't even have to have a customer live before we started doing cool stuff with machine learning, with large data sets because we would just go find products that were live on the internet and use that data. I think in different industries like healthcare it's a lot harder to come by the data and there's a lot more concerns around it. >> Michelle, what are some of the learnings that you've had, now if you look back from where you from where you were. What are some of the key learnings with the venture you're building, around what was surprising to you, what popped out as value? Was it the machine learning? I mean, what were some of the learnings you can share? >> I think in general, my best piece of advice for start ups is just don't die. And I say that a lot and people laugh, but it's so true. I've seen so many friends with startups that kind of had a moment where they were like okay, it's all falling apart, and they just, they said okay that's it. But if they had stayed around for like five more days, 10 more days, 50 more days, how their fortunes could have changed is incredible, and we've gone through that, I've seen other people go through that, so that's number one. And the number two is, like don't wait. Just do something. So I think for a long time we were sort of like waiting to get like the right data sets in the right order and like getting it all perfect first, and that's not the right way to approach it. Just go. >> So get a horse on the track and at least run the race, get something going. >> Michelle: Yeah, exactly. >> And don't run out of cash. As I always say, you can't go out of business when there's money in the bank. >> Michelle: Yup. >> So, okay, so now on the tech side. What has surprised you on some of the amazing things that are now starting to come into visibility for you, and what do you see as your vision? So what's kind of obvious and that you're going after, and what are some of the things that you see in your vision that others might not see? >> So what's really, what we're doing right now, and every startup needs focus, you can't do everything at once, but you need to have this bigger vision to make it, you know a billion dollar potential kind of exit company because that's what people want to invest in if you want to take venture capital, and not every startup needs to. You can self finance a business. But for me, this rapid growth was really important, and so I think what was really important was that we kind of like built something that could scale long term, so this broad vision of like every single product that you could pick up off the shelf as a consumer, you know exactly how to use it. For me, there is like a personal mission in that because I hate waste. I went to Berkeley, like we talked about before, so I have a little bit of that like hippie mentality, and I was buying all this stuff like in fast fashion, and it just sat in my closet and then I'd throw it out or I would never use it, and that made me really bummed. And the reason I was throwing it out was because I didn't know how to use it, and if I had just gotten that piece of information up front, then I probably would have been able to integrate it into my life, and I wouldn't have thrown it out. So doing it across all industries in retail. >> So really efficiency too is key on this? >> Yeah. >> You could actually accelerate that. >> Absolutely. >> So on the fashion side, is that where the focus is now on the retail side, or only still? >> Yes, so we're B2B, we sell to fashion retailers and brands. They use our technology and then they figure out where they want to get it into the consumer's hands, so it might be on the e-commerce page, it might be in the store, it might be in the associate's phone, so that you as a shopper don't even know that like a customer, or that the associate is like kind of cheating, right? They're looking at FINDMINE to find out what outfits to recommend. They might just be having an interaction with you like a human does, but they're using an assistive tool to get that efficiency that you mentioned before. >> So you have a panel coming up this afternoon. Without giving away all the content, what's the topic that you want to talk about? >> So the panel is artificial intelligence for good, and ours specifically is autonomous world, so it's about the automation that's kind of all around us and becoming more ubiquitous, and how artificial intelligence is making that possible. >> So I always get, I'm so amazed by autonomous vehicles because I think, you know, it's so obvious, mental models, we all have cars. >> Michelle: Yeah. >> Or you'd have been no transportation, but it's pretty radical when you think about the impact of autonomous vehicles, and this is a pretty amazing trend. I mean, smart cities is also mind blowing as well. You think about what's going to happen for the digital citizen. >> Yeah. >> Like what are those services? So there's some amazing potential but also work that has to get done. What's your thoughts on those two trends and the impacts, you know, 10, 20 years down? Will there be cars on the road in 25 years? >> Yeah, so actually on the panel coming up it's going to be myself, kind of from the retail perspective, there's going to be someone from the smart cities perspective, and someone from the autonomous vehicles perspective, and I'm kind of like what am I doing here? Like those trends are so much bigger and more like amazing and life changing than what we're doing, but I actually think that retail is so ubiquitous and like we're all, we all shop all the time, whether it's through Amazon, whether it's a physical store, and so it's a little bit more accessible, almost, whereas like the idea of having like a driverless car is harder for you to picture. >> Yeah. >> And one of the things that I'll be talking about probably a little bit later is how like you don't actually realize how much of this is going on around you all the time, whereas seeing a car on the street without a driver in the left hand side like drivers seat is like a shock, right? We're so not used to. >> John: Yeah, it's mind blowing. >> Used to that. >> Be it worry, let me ask the retail question because one of the things you're close to as a retail is that you're seeing a lot of the brick and mortar sites becoming destination oriented, not so much day to day shopping. E-commerce is obviously exploding, it's becoming what it is, and there's some tie in between digital and analog now, and a converging. What's the big takeaway? What's the state of the art right now in retail? Is that the vibe right now that it's a combination of destination based or is there something else going on? Can you share some color on what's happening in the retail world? >> Yeah, so everyone talks about like oh my god, like no one's going to shop in stores anymore. Well we're a long way away from that. Over 90% of all commerce is still done in a physical store. It's just that all the growth is in the e-commerce and that's why everyone talks about it is as like this huge disruption because it is, like all of the growth is in e-commerce, which is incredible, so at some point maybe it will completely take it over, but I personally don't feel like that's the case because we're humans, we crave social interaction, and part of shopping is that social interaction, that consultative nature of selling that I just don't, I hope won't be replaced completely by a screen. >> So you're having fun here at South by Southwest? A little bit of rain today, you got drenched as you were walking over here. What's this show like been for you? >> I got here this morning, came straight from the airport to one event and then went to another event with my suitcase like trying to get around, so the rain definitely put a damper on that, but I'm hoping it clears out. >> What do you think about the Intel AI booth here, AI lounge. What do you think, pretty impressive? >> Yeah, you actually can check out FINDMINE in that corner over there. We're on that wall, and it's a live, it's a live website. It's actually showing John Varvatos, which is one of our customers. They're a high end fashion brand for mens and we show the complete outfits, so you can go actually like shop right there, FINDMINE would get credit for that, and Intel has been an awesome partner to us and just really innovative, and I love Rainey Street. I think it's so cool, like these are all houses converted into bars converted into an Intel experience. It's very meta. >> Yeah, very meta, it's a meta of meta. Michelle Bacharach, thanks so much for spending this time in the Cube. We're here inside the Cube inside the AI lounge here with the Cube. I'm John Furrier. We'll be right back with more coverage from South by Southwest. (upbeat instrumental music)

>> Narrator: Live from Austin, Texas, it's The Cube covering South by Southwest 2017, brought to you by Intel. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hey, welcome everyone back for day two of live coverage of South by Southwest. This is the cube, our flagship program from Silicon Angle. We go out to the events and extract the (mumbles). We're at the Intel AI Lounge, people are rolling in, it's an amazing vibe here, South by Southwest. The themes are AI, virtual reality, augmented reality, technology. They got great booths here, free beers, free drinks, and of course great sessions and great conversations here with the Cube. My first guest of the day here is Ben Parr, a friend of the Cube. He's been an entrepreneur, he's been a social media maven, he's been a journalist, all around great guy. Ben, thanks for joining us today. >> Thank you for having me again. >> So you're a veteran with South by Southwest, you know the social scene, you've seen the evolution from Web 2.0 all the way to today, had Scobel on yesterday, Brian Fanzo, really the vibe is all about that next level, of social to connecting and you got a startup you're working on that you founded, co-founded called AI? >> Ben: Octane AI. >> Octane AI, that's in the heart of this new social fabric that's developing. Where AI is starting to do stuff, keep learning, analytics but, ultimately, it's just a connection. Talk about your company. What is Octane AI? Tell us a little bit about the company. >> So Octane AI is a platform that lets you build an audience on Facebook Messenger and then through a bot. And so, what we do is allow you to create a presence on Messenger because if I told you there was a social app that had a billion users every month, bigger than Snapchat plus Twitter plus Instagram combined you'd want to figure out a strategy for how to engage with those people right? And that social app is Facebook Messenger. And yet no one ever thinks, oh could I build an audience on a messaging app? Could I build an audience on Messenger or WeChat or any of the others. But you can through a bot. And you can not just build an audience but you can create really engaging content through conversation. So what we've done is, we've made it really easy to make a bot on messenger but more importantly, a real reason for people to, actually, come to your bot and engage with it and make it really easy to create content for it. In the same way you create content for a blog or create content for YouTube Channel. Maroon 5, Aerosmith, KISS, Lindsay Lohan, 30 seconds to MARS, Jason Derulo and a whole bunch more use us to build an audience and engage their fans on Messenger. >> So let me get your thoughts on a couple of trends around this. Cause this is really kind of, to me, a key part that chat bots illustrate the big trends that are going on. Chat bots were the hype. People were talking about, oh chat bots. It's a good mental model for people to see AI but it also has been, kind of, I won't say a pest, if you will, for users. It's been like a notification. A notification of the economy we're living in. Now you're taking it to the next level. This is what we're seeing. The deep learnings and the analytics around turning notifications which can be noisy after a while, into real content and connections. >> Into something useful, absolutely. Like look, the last year of bots. The Facebook platform is not even a year old. We've been in that fart apps stage of bots. Remember the first year of mobile apps? You had the fart app and that made $50,000 a day and that was annoying as hell. We're at that stage now, the experimentation stage. And we've seen different companies going in different, really cool directions. Our direction is, how do you create compelling content so you're not spamming people but you have content that you can share, not just in your bot but as a link on your social media to your followers, to your fans, on Twitter, everywhere else and have a scalable conversation about whatever you want. Maroon 5 has conversations with their audience about their upcoming tours or they even released an exclusive preview of their new song, Cold, through our bots. You could do almost anything with our bots or with any bot. We're just learning right now, as an industry, what are the best practices. >> So where do bots go for the next level? Because you and I have known each other for almost over 10 years, we've seen the whole movement and now we're living in a fake news era. But social media is evolving where content now is super important that glues people together, communities together. In a way, you're taking AI or bots, if you will. Which is a first, I mean, .5 version of where AI is going. Where content, now, is being blended into notifications. How important is content in community? >> Content in community are essential to any product. And I feel like when you hear the word bot, you don't think community and that you could build a community with it because it's a bot, it's supposed to be automated. But you, actually, can if you do it in the right way and it can be a very, very powerful experience. We're building features that allow you to build more community in your bot and have people who are talking with your bot communicate with each other. There's a lot of that. What I feel like is, we're at the zero point one or zero point two of the long scale of AI. What we need to do right now is showcase all the use cases that really work for AI, bots, machine learning. Over time, we will be adding more other great technologies from Intel and others that will make all these technologies and everything we do better, more social and most of all, more personalized. I think that's one of the big benefits of AI. >> Do you see bot technology or what bots can turn into being embedded into things like autonomous vehicles, AR, is there a stack developing, if you will, around bots? What you're talking about is a progression of bots. What's your vision on where this goes down the road? >> I see a bunch of companies, now, building the technological stack for AI. I see a bunch of companies building the consumer interface, bots is one of those consumer interfaces. Not just chat bots but voice bots. And then I see another layer that's more enterprise that's helping make more efficient things like recruiting or all sorts of automation or driving. That are being built as well. But you need each of those stacks to work really well to make this all work. >> So are there bots here at South by Southwest? Is there a bot explosion, is there bots that tell you where the best parties are? What's the scene here at Southby? Where are the bots and if there were bots, what would they be doing to help people figure out what to do? >> The Southby bot is, actually, not a bad bot. They launched their bot just before South by Southwest. It has a good party recommendations and things. But it the standard bot. I feel like what we're seeing is the best use, there's a lot of good bot people. What I'm seeing right now is that people are still flushing out the best use cases for their bots. There's no bot yet that can predict all the parties you want to go to. We got to have our expectations set. That will happen but we're still a few years away from really deep AI bots. But there are clearly ones where you can communicate faster with your friends. There's clearly ones that help you connect with your favorite artist. There's clearly ones that help you build an audience and communicate at scale. And I feel like the next step is the usefulness. >> Talk about the user interface. Robert Scobel and I were talking yesterday, we have some guests coming on today that had user experience background. With AI, with virtual reality, with bots, with deep learning, all this collective intelligence going on, what's your vision of the user interface as it changes, as people's expectations? What are some of those things that you might see developing pretty quickly as deep learning, analytics, more data stats come online? What is the user interface? Cause bots will intersect with that as an assistant or a value add for the user. What's your vision on? >> I'll tell you what I see in the near term and then I'll tell you a really crazy idea of how I see the long term. In the near term, I think what you're going to see is bots have become more predictive. That, based on your conversations, are more personalized and maybe not a necessarily need as much input from you to be really intelligent. And so voice, text, standard interfaces that we're used to. I think the bigger, longer run is neurological. Is the ability to interface without having to speak. Is AI as a companion to help us in everything we do. I feel like, in 30 years, we won't even, it's, kind of like, do your remember the world when it had no internet? It's hard, it feels so much different. There will be a point in about 20 years we will not understand what the world was before AI. Before AI assistance where assisting us mentally, automatically and through every interface. And so good AI's, in the long run, don't just run on one bot or one thing, they follow you wherever you go. Right now it might be on your phone. When you get home, it may be on your home, it may be in your car but it should be the same sets of AI's that you use daily. >> Doctor Nevine Rou, yesterday, called the AI the bulldozer for data. What bulldozers where in the real world, AI's going to do that for data. Cause you want to service more data and make things more usable for users. >> Yes, the data really helps AI become more personalized and that's a really big benefit to the user to every individual. The more personalized the experience, the less you have to do. >> Alright, so what's the most amazing thing you've seen so far this year at Southby? What's going on out there that's pretty amazing? That's popping out of the wood work? In terms of either trend, content, product, demos, what are some of the cool things you're seeing. >> So, as it is only Saturday, I feel like the coolest thing will still come to me. But outside of AI, there have been some really cool mixed reality, augmented reality demos. I can't remember the name. There's a product with butterflies flying around me. All sorts of really breaking edge technologies that, really, create another new interface honestly where AI may interact with us through the augmented reality of our world. I mean, that's Robert Scogul's thing exactly. But there's a lot of really cool things that are being built on that front. I think those are the obvious, coolest ones. I'm curious to see which ones are going to be the big winners. >> Okay, so I want to ask you a personal question. So you were doing some venture investing around AI and some other things. What caused you to put that pause button on that mission to start the chat bot AI company? >> So I was an investor for a couple of years. I invested in ubean, the wireless electricity company and Shots with Justin Bieber which is always fun. And I love investing and I love working with companies. But I got into Silicone Valley and I got into startups because I wanted to build companies. I wanted to build ideas. This happened, in part, because of my co-founders. My co-founder Matt, who is the first head of product at Ustream and twice into the Forbes 30 under 30. One of the king makers of the bot industry. The opportunity to be a part of building the future of AI was irresistible to me. I needed to be a part of that. >> Okay, can you tell any stories about Justin Bieber for us, while we're here inside the Cube? (laughs) >> I wonder how many of those I can, actually, tell? Okay, so look. Justin Bieber is an investor in a company I'm an investor in called Shots. Which is now a super studio that represents everyone from Lele Pons to Mike Tyson on digital online and they're doing really, really well. One of Justin's best friends is the founder, John Shahidi. And so it's just really random. Sitting with John, who I invested in and just getting random FaceTime's. Be like, oh it's Justin Bieber, say hi to Justin. As if it was nothing. As if it was a normal, it's a normal day in his life. >> Could you just have him retweet one of my Tweets. He's got like a zillion followers. What's his follower count at now? >> You don't want that. He's done that to me before. When Justin retweets you or even John retweets you, thousands of not tens of thousands of Justin Bieber fans, bots and not bots, start messaging you, asking you to follow them, talking to you all the time. I still get the tweets all the time from all the Justin fans. >> Okay don't tweet me then. I'm nice and happy with 21,000 followers. Alright, so next level for you in terms of this venture. Obviously, they got some rock stars in there. What's the next step for you guys right now? Give us a little inside baseball in the venture status where you guys are at. What's the next step? >> We launched the company publicly in November, we started in May. We raised 1.6 million from general catalyst, from Sherpa Ventures, a couple of others. When we launched our new feature, Convos, which allows you to create shareable bots, shareable conversations with the way you share blog posts. And that came out with all those launch partners I mentioned before like Maroon 5. We're working on perfecting the experience and, mostly, trying to make a really, really compelling experience with the user with bots because if we can't do that, then there's no use to doing anything. >> So you provide the octane for the explosive conversations? (laughs) >> Yes, there you go, thank you, thank you. And we make it really easy. So we're just trying to make it easier to do this. This is a product that your mom could use, that an artist could use, any social media team could use. Writing a convo is like writing a blog post on media. >> Are moms really getting the chat bot scene? I, honestly, get the Hollywood. I'm going to go back to Hollywood in a second but being a general, middle America kind of tech/genre, what are they like? Are they grokking the whole bot thing? What's the feedback from middle America tech? >> But think of it this way. There are a billion people on Messenger and it's a, really, part of the question, they all use Facebook Messenger. And so, they may be communicating with a bot without knowing it. Or they might want to communicate with their fans. It's not about the technology as much as this is like connecting with who you really care about. If I really care about a Maroon 5 or Rachel Ray, I can now have that option. And it doesn't really matter what the technology is as much as it is that personal connection, that experience is good. >> John: Is it one-one-one or group? Cause it sounds like it's town hall, perfect for a town hall situation. >> It's one-on-one, it's scale. So you could have a conversation with a bot while each of the audience members is having a conversation one-on-one. When you can choose different options and it could be a different conversation for each person. >> Alright, so I got to ask about the Hollywood scene. You mentioned Justin Bieber. I wanted to go down that because Hollywood really has adopted social media pretty heavily because they can go direct to the audience. We're seeing that. Obviously, with the election, Trump was on Twitter. He bypasses all the press but Hollywood has done very well with social. How are they using the bots? They are a tell sign of where it's going. Can you share some antidotal stories or data around how Maroon 5, Justin, these guys are leveraging this and what's some of the impact? >> Sure, so about a month 1/2, 2 months before Maroon 5 launched their new song, new single, Cold. They came to us and wanted to build a distribution. They wanted to reach their audience in a more direct personal way. And so we helped them make a bot. It didn't take long. We helped them write convos. And so what they did was they wrote convos about things like exclusive behind the scenes photos from their recent tour or their top moments of 2016 or things that their fans really care about. And they shared em. They got a URL just like you would get, a blog poster URL. They shared it out with their 39 million Facebook fans, they shared it with their Twitter followers, they shared it across their social media. And 10's of thousand's of people started talking with their bot each time they did this. About 24 hours before the bot, before their new single release, they exclusively released a 10 second clip of Cold through their bot. And when they did that, within 24 hours, the size of their bot doubled because it went viral within the Maroon 5 community. There's a share function in our convos and people shared the convo with their friends and with their friends friends and it kept on spreading. We saw this viral graph happen. And the next day when they released the single, 1000's of people bought the song because of the bot alone. And now the bot is a core of their social strategy. They share a convo every single week and it's not just them but now Lohan and a whole bunch of others are doing the same thing. >> John: Lindsay Lohan. >> Lindsay Lohan is one of our most popular bots. Her fans are really dedicated. >> And so you can almost see it's, almost connecting with CGI, looking at what CGI's doing in film making. You could almost have a CGI component built-in. So it's all this stuff coming together. >> Ben: Multimedia matters. >> So what do you think about the Intel booth here? The AI experience? They got some Kinetic photo experience, amazing non-profit activities in deep loading (mumbles), missing children, what do you think? >> This is some of the best use cases for AI which is, people think of AI as just like the direct consumer interface which is what we do but AI is an underlying layer to everything we do. And if it can help even 1% or 1,000% identify and find missing children or increase the efficiency of our technology stacks so that we save energy. Or we figure out new ways to save energy. This is where AI can really make an impact. It is just a fundamental layer of everything. In the same way the internet is just a fundamental layer of everything. So I've seen some very cool things here. >> Alright, Ben Parr, great guest, in venture capitalist now founder of a great company Octane AI. High octane, explosive conversations looking forward to adopting. We're going to, definitely, take advantage of the chat bot and maybe we can get some back stage passes to Maroon 5. (laughs) >> (laughs) There will be some fun times in the future, I know it. >> Alright Ben Parr. >> Ben: Justin Bieber. >> Justin Bieber inside the Cube right here and Ben Parr. Thanks for watching. It's the Intel AI Lounge. A lot of great stuff. A lot of great people here. Thanks for joining us. Our next guest will be up after this short break. (lively music)

>> Narrator: Live from Austin, Texas, it's theCube. Covering South by Southwest 27 deeds, brought to you by Intel. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. Live coverage of South by Southwest here in Austin, Texas. This is Silicon Angle's theCube, our flagship program. We're going to go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier. Our next guest Ali Vahabaznet. >> Almost, Vahabzadeh. >> Vahazbadeh, Vahabzadeh, CEO of Chariot, a hot start up that was acquired by Ford Mobility Solutions last September. Really innovating in what I call the sharing economy which has been called, not I call, the sharing economy. But this really highlights the paradigm shift. So Ali, I want to thank you for coming on, I appreciate it. >> Thank you for having me, John. >> So Chariot is one of your cities not only in the Bay Area but here in Austin. Give a quick highlight of what's going on here in Austin for you guys and the freebie from the South by Southwest goers. >> Yes, Chariot is reinventing mass transit by crowdsourcing new routes in neighborhoods that either don't have the most commuter options or there's commuter options but there's not enough space on buses and trains. So we crowdsource these routes and we launch operations in these neighborhoods once we hit a tipping point and we get vehicles on the road. We started in San Francisco in 2014. We expanded to Austin, and then most recently in September we got acquired by Ford Smart Mobility to become a cornerstone of Ford's mobility strategy for many years to come. >> So this really highlights the sharing economy as I said, but what's going on is that the users interface to the real world is becoming digital. So obviously cars are not digital yet, they'll be self driving soon and Ford's announced mass production in five years. But it points to their relationship with others, collaboration. This is the big AI trend that gets surfaced in real-world benefits. >> Yeah, it's incredible. Everyone knows that Ford makes incredible cars, but Ford also wants to be a mobility company as well. With this thing that we have in our pockets, the phone, it provides a tremendous amount of data about us, commuters, riders, people who are trying to get from A to B. By harnessing that data for now it's given to us by the users themselves. By harnessing that data we can make some really intelligent and efficient choices about where our vehicles, in our example, 14-passenger Ford transit wagons, should be and could be to pick people up at the times where they need it the most. >> All right Ali, I want to kind of get you to riff on something with me. Imagine you're re-imagining the future, I love that. Or reinventing mass transit. So re-imagine some of the amazing things that are possible in your vision. Just kind of roll forward a few years. I mean we're going to have headsets and virtual reality and holograms that can bring my experience inside the vehicle. Not only am I just getting a ride somewhere, I mean in our area in Silicon Valley the Google buses and the company buses they've all gone wifi. They're working away. So I can imagine that you must have a vision for technology into your product. Can you share you vision on that? >> Yeah, imagine most people's commute is a twice-daily worst part of their day. We've moved the needle even without a lot of experimental things going on inside of Chariot. We've move it to, it's actually a decent part of your day and you don't have to worry about it anymore. What Chariot and Ford is looking forward to doing in the next couple of years is to actually make it, believe it or not, the best part of your day. You mentioned VR, entertainment options, social connecting options with other people in a Chariot who you may either want to network with professionally in the future or maybe even socially. Perhaps your next date is onboard. So there's so many things that you could be doing in that Chariot because we know your preferences. We know where you're commuting from and to. We know what you want to eat for dinner. We know where you want to go for happy hour on Thursday night and the Chariot's AI can actually be suggesting to you what Chariot to get on at what time and these folks are going to be onboard with you at that point. >> So you now I'm craving some Buffalo wings, so you just pull off the exit and I get some wings? Or bring out a Fitbit, or Johnny's going to take a bio break. I'm kind of being over the top, but this is what you're thinking, right? >> Perhaps you're on a diet and the device on your hand or the app, the diet app on your phone knows exactly what you had for breakfast and lunch. Perhaps the Chariot is headed in a certain neighborhood with a vegetarian option and you've had too much meat in the day. It could suggest to you hey, get off on this curb because there's a wonderful option here for you to have a non-protein meal. >> John: But that's in your future, you see that vision. >> It's in the future and it's not too distant from where we are right now. I mean what I think is cool between Chariot and Ford is Ford has these incredible resources. Also has vision with what they can do in the vehicle. Chariot, in a very short amount of time, in less than three years, we were able to penetrate a very attractive market of young professionals and actually have them tell us what they want to do, where they want to go from and where they want to go to. We're just scratching the surface right now. >> Tell me about your experiences here at South by Southwest. What's the vibe of the show? We've seen some touchpoints around. It's a VR show, it's some AI. Other things that you're observing that you could surface and say are the key top story lines that are developing on day one of South by Southwest? >> Yeah, you know it's my first South by Southwest, John. I was walking over here with a friend. I was remarking to her that I actually feel this is probably what world's fairs were like 100 years ago when people were discovering new technologies and companies like Ford were actually big participants in world's fairs. This feels like a 21st century world's fair. I'm just seeing such incredible installations and companies that I've never heard of before looking to make an impression on consumers or future users. Companies that don't even have a product, don't even have a service in reality right now and are just providing you a peak into their future. It's my first day here. I can't wait for the next few days. >> Well it's also a good mash up of creativity, industry, and just people, it's a melting pot of just kind of laid-back. It's Austin so it's pretty cool here. Easy living, as they say. >> Yeah, absolutely. There are people who are looking at what the future can hold. Also there are people who I can see in the look of their eyes what is my next start up going to be? Or where can I take my career next? Is it smart transportation like Chariot? Or it is something in VR or AI? Or something that doesn't even exist today? So it's great to see this collaboration. People also meeting each other who've never met each other before. Breaking plates and meeting new people for the first time. >> Okay, so personal question, last question to give you kind of on a personal note. Take your CEO of Chariot hat off at Ford Smart Mobility, put on your personal Ali hat. What are you most excited about? Not with the Chariot, but outside of Chariot as you look at the real world technically speaking. What are you most excited about? What's floating your boat, so to speak? Or driving your car or Chariot? >> Riding in a Chariot, you don't have to drive anymore. The first thing that comes to mind is I'm honored that I'm going to have dinner with a bunch of mayors this evening including Mayor Adler and several others. And I tell you what, when I started the company three years ago, no one would pick up our phone, regulators, city officials and the like. But now I think that the city and urban leaders whether it's Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor's Office, the Transit Authority, the Housing Authority, whatever the case may be, they really are open to not just innovations in transit, but innovations in housing, innovations working together, live-work. In a very short three years I've seen that sea change in the attitude. It's going to be, I think it's a dam that's opened up. I think you're only going to see this momentum accelerate with the civic authorities and innovators and technologists actually working together. >> It's a real impact. Final, final question since one popped in my head. What is AI going to do for your business, your industry, transportation and Chariot in general? What is AI's impact to your industry? I think AI's going to take cars off the street because we are going to know where people are coming from and going to at what probable hours. So we can run much more efficient routes and much more efficient networks. We'll run larger vehicles, larger format vehicles as opposed to single occupancy vehicles like you'll see on Rainey Street tonight. So that's gets me really excited because it doesn't only improve the human experience, it helps the environment and it's all good things. I can't think of a downside for AI in transportation. >> Well there might be some disruption in some transition. Let's just take one simple example. Parking lots, what are you going to turn them into? >> I can't wait to see parking lots converted into lower-income housing, into parks. >> Public easements. >> Into public easements, into more shared office workspace. >> The impact's bigger than people think. >> Just walk down Braswell Street or Congress Street. It seems like every other building is a parking garage. Or half of a building is now a parking garage. We have to stop building parking garages. We have to stop providing free parking both at home and at work so that we can force, transition people into the different formats of commuting. >> So all these jobs that are going away are now being shifted. Now again, idea for people out there watching just get in the business of retrofitting garages into housing, that's a new opportunity. >> That's my next start up, John, are you in? >> John: I'm in. >> Okay. >> Seed funding, this is theCube here live at South by Southwest at the Intel AI Lounge. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. More after this short break. (upbeat instrumental music)

(electronic music) >> Announcer: Live from Austin, Texas, it's The Cube. Covering South By Southwest 2017. Brought to you by Intel. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hey, welcome back, everyone, we're here live in Austin, Texas, for South By Southwest Cube coverage at the Intel AI Lounge, #IntelAI if you're watching, put it out on Twitter. I'm John Furrier of Silicon Angle for the Cube. Our next guest is Alison Yu who's with Cloudera. And in the news today, although they won't comment on it. It's great to see you, social media manager at Cloudera. >> Yes, it's nice to see you as well. >> Great to see you. So, Cloudera has a strategic relationship with Intel. You guys have a strategic investment, Intel, and you guys partner up, so it's well-known in the industry. But what's going on here is interesting, AI for social good is our theme. >> Alison: Yes. >> Cloudera has always been a pay-it-forward company. And I've known the founders, Mike Olson and Amr Awadallah. >> Really all about the community and paying it forward. So Alison, talk about what you guys are working on. Because you're involved in a panel, but also Cloudera Cares. And you guys have teamed up with Thorn, doing some interesting things. >> Alison: Yeah (laughing). >> Take it away! >> Sure, thanks. Thanks for the great intro. So I'll give you a little bit of a brief introduction to Cloudera Cares. Cloudera Cares was founded roughly about three years ago. It was really an employee-driven and -led effort. I kind of stepped into the role and ended up being a little bit more of the leader just by the way it worked out. So we've really gone from, going from, you know, we're just doing soup kitchens and everything else, to strategic partnerships, donating software, professional service hours, things along those lines. >> Which has been very exciting to see our nonprofit partnerships grow in that way. So it really went from almost grass-root efforts to an organized organization now. And we start stepping up our strategic partnerships about a year and a half ago. We started with DataKind, is our initial one. About two years ago, we initiated that. Then we a year ago, about in September, we finalized our donation of an enterprise data hub to Thorn, which if you're not aware of they're all about using technology and innovation to stop child-trafficking. So last year, around September or so, we announced the partnership and we donated professional service hours. And then in October, we went with them to Grace Hopper, which is obviously the largest Women in Tech Conference in North America. And we hosted a hackathon and we helped mentor women entering into the tech workforce, and trying to come up with some really cool innovative solutions for them to track and see what's going on with the dark web, so we had quite a few interesting ideas coming out of that. >> Okay, awesome. We had Frederico Gomez Suarez on, who was the technical advisor. >> Alison: Yeah. >> A Microsoft employee, but he's volunteering at Thorn, and this is interesting because this is not just donating to the soup kitchens and what not. >> Alison: Yeah. >> You're starting to see a community approach to philanthropy that's coding RENN. >> Yeah. >> Hackathons turning into community galvanizing communities, and actually taking it to the next level. >> Yeah. So, I think one of the things we realize is tech, while it's so great, we have actually introduced a lot of new problems. So, I don't know if everyone's aware, but in the '80s and '90s, child exploitation had almost completely died. They had almost resolved the issue. With the introduction of technology and the Internet, it opened up a lot more ways for people to go ahead and exploit children, arrange things, in the dark web. So we're trying to figure out a way to use technology to combat a problem that technology kind of created as well, but not only solving it, but rescuing people. >> It's a classic security problem, the surface area has increased for this kind of thing. But big data, which is where you guys were founded on in the cloud era that we live in. >> Alison: Yeah. >> Pun intended. (laughing) Using the machine learning now you start with some scale now involved. >> Yes, exactly, and that's what we're really hoping, so we're partnering with Intel in the National Center of Missing Exploited Children. We're actually kicking off a virtual hackathon tomorrow, and our hope is we can figure out some different innovative ways that AI can be applied to scraping data and finding children. A lot of times we'll see there's not a lot of clues, but for example, if we can upload, if there can be a tool that can upload three or four different angles of a child's face when they go missing, maybe what happens is someone posts a picture on Instagram or Twitter that has a geo tag and this kid is in the background. That would be an amazing way of using AI and machine learning-- >> Yeah. >> Alison: To find a child, right. >> Well, I'll give you guy a plug for Cloudera. And I'll reference Dr. Naveen Rao, who's the GM of Intel's AI group, was on earlier. And he was talking about how there's a lot of storage available, not a lot of compute. Now, Cloudera, you guys have really pioneered the data lake, data hub concept where storage is critical. >> Yeah. >> Now, you got this compute power and machine learning, that's kind of where it comes together. Did I get that right? >> Yeah, and I think it's great that with the partnership with Intel we're able to integrate our technology directly into the hardware, which makes it so much more efficient. You're able to compute massive amounts of data in a very short amount of time, and really come up with real results. And with this partnership, specifically with Thorn and NCMEC, we're seeing that it's real impact for thousands of people last year, I think. In the 2016 impact report, Thorn said they identified over 6,000 trafficking victims, of which over 2,000 were children. Right, so that tool that they use is actually built on Cloudera. So, it's great seeing our technology put into place. >> Yeah, that's awesome. I was talking to an Intel person the other day, they have 72 cores now on a processor, on the high-end Xeons. Let's get down to some other things that you're working on. What are you doing here at the show? Do you have things that you're doing? You have a panel? >> Yeah, so at the show, at South by Southwest, we're kicking off a virtual hackathon tomorrow at our Austin offices for South by Southwest. Everyone's welcome to come. I just did the liquor order, so yes, everyone please come. (laughing) >> You just came from Austin's office, you're just coming there. >> Yeah, exactly. So we've-- >> Unlimited Red Bull, pizza, food. (laughing) >> Well, we'll be doing lots and lots tomorrow, but we're kicking that off, we have representatives from Thorn, NCMEC, Google, Intel, all on site to answer questions. That's kind of our kickoff of this month-long virtual hackathon. You don't need to be in Austin to participate, but that is one of the things that we are kicking off. >> And then on Sunday, actually here at the Intel AI Lounge we're doing a panel on AI for Good, and using artificial intelligence to solve problems. >> And we'll be broadcasting that live here on The Cube. So, folks, SiliconAngle.tv will carry that. Alison, talk about the trend that, you weren't here when we were talking about how there's now a new counterculture developing in a good way around community and social change. How real is the trend that you're starting to see these hackathons evolve from what used to be recruiting sessions to people just jamming together to meet each other. Now, you're starting to see the next level of formation where people are organizing collectively-- >> Yeah. >> To impact real issues. >> Yeah. >> Is this a real trend or where is that trend, can you speak to that? >> Sure, so from what I've seen from the hackathons what we've been seeing before was it's very company-specific. Only one company wanted to do it, and they would kind of silo themselves, right? Now, we're kind of seeing this coming together of companies that are generally competitors, but they see a great social cause and they decide that they want to band together, regardless of their differences in technology, product, et cetera, for a common good. And, so. >> Like a Thorn. >> For Thorn, you'll see a lot of competitors, so you'll see Facebook and Twitter or Google and Amazon, right? >> John: Yeah. >> And we'll see all these different competitors come together, lend their workforce to us, and have them code for one great project. >> So, you see it as a real trend. >> I do see it as a trend. I saw Thorn last year did a great one with Facebook and on-site with Facebook. This year as we started to introduce this hackathon, we decided that we wanted to do a hackathon series versus just a one-off hackathon. So we're seeing people being able to share code, contribute, work on top of other code, right, and it's very much a sharing community, so we're very excited for that. >> All right, so I got to ask you what's they culture like at Cloudera these days, as you guys prepare to go public? What's the vibe internally of the company, obviously Mike Olson, the founder, is still around, Amr's around. You guys have been growing really fast. Got your new space. What's the vibe like in Cloudera now? >> Honestly, the culture at Cloudera hasn't really changed. So, when I joined three years ago we were much smaller than we are now. But I think one thing that we're really excited about is everyone's still so collaborative, and everyone makes sure to help one another out. So, I think our common goal is really more along the lines of we're one team, and let's put out the best product we can. >> Awesome. So, what's South by Southwest mean to you this year? If you had to kind of zoom out and say, okay. What's the theme? We heard Robert Scoble earlier say it's a VR theme. We hear at Intel it's AI. So, there's a plethora of different touchpoints here. What do you see? >> Yeah, so I actually went to the opening keynote this morning, which was great. There was an introduction, and then I don't know if you realized, but Cory Booker was on as well, which is great. >> John: Yep. >> But I think a lot of what we had seen was they called out on stage that artificial intelligence is something that will be a trend for the next year. And I think that's very exciting that Intel really hit the nail on the head with the AI Lounge, right? >> Cory Booker, I'm a big fan. He's from my neighborhood, went to the same school I went to, that my family. So in Northern Valley, Old Tappan. Cory, if you're watching, retweet us, hashtag #IntelAI. So AI's there. >> AI is definitely there. >> No doubt, it's on stage. >> Yes, but I think we're also seeing a very large, just community around how can we make our community better versus let's try to go in these different silos, and just be hyper-aware of what's only in front of us, right? So, we're seeing a lot more from the community as well, just being interested in things that are not immediately in front of us, the wider, either nation, global, et cetera. So, I think that's very exciting people are stepping out of just their own little bubbles, right? And looking and having more compassion for other people, and figuring out how they can give back. >> And, of course, open source at the center of all the innovation as always. (laughing) >> I would like to think so, right? >> It is! I would testify. Machine learning is just a great example, how that's now going up into the cloud. We started to see that really being part of all the apps coming out, which is great because you guys are in the big data business. >> Alison: Yeah. >> Okay, Alison, thanks so much for taking the time. Real quick plug for your panel on Sunday here. >> Yeah. >> What are you going to talk about? >> So we're going to be talking a lot about AI for good. We're really going to be talking about the NCMEC, Thorn, Google, Intel, Cloudera partnership. How we've been able to do that, and a lot of what we're going to also concentrate on is how the everyday tech worker can really get involved and give back and contribute. I think there is generally a misconception of if there's not a program at my company, how do I give back? >> John: Yeah. >> And I think Cloudera's a shining example of how a few employees can really enact a lot of change. We went from grassroots, just a few employees, to a global program pretty quickly, so. >> And it's organically grown, which is the formula for success versus some sort of structured company program (laughing). >> Exactly, so we definitely gone from soup kitchen to strategic partnerships, and being able to donate our own time, our engineers' times, and obviously our software, so. >> Thanks for taking the time to come on our Cube. It's getting crowded in here. It's rocking the house, the house is rocking here at the Intel AI Lounge. If you're watching, check out the hashtag #IntelAI or South by Southwest. I'm John Furrie. I'll be back with more after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Narrator: Live from Austin, Texas, it's the Cube, covering South by Southwest 2017. Brought to you by Intel. (electronic music) Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hello, and welcome to a special broadcast of Silicon Angles, the Cube. This is our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. We're here for a special broadcast, kicking off South by Southwest. This show is the center of the entertainment/media universe and we are here in the Intel AI Lounge, the hashtag Intel AI, and of course, hashtag The Cube, hashtag South by Southwest, and, again, South by Southwest, I call it the Burning Man for the tech industry, the music industry. It is where all the creative, the talented, and the innovators, the bomb throwers, the disrupters, and also the innovators building the next generation technologies. We're going to have wall-to-wall coverage, all day interviews here, and our theme this week at South by Southwest, is really powered by Intel AI, and that is, AI for social good. We're going to be unpacking all the cutting edge technology that's taking us into the next generation. What's this world look like with AI? What's this world look like with autonomous vehicles? These are significant shifts that we've never seen in the computer industry before. We're going to be breaking them down. And here to kickoff day one of our Cube coverage is, my friend, Brian Fanzo. iSocialFanz, is the founder. Great guy, young guy-- younger than me but, you know, still in the front lines. Brian, welcome to our kickoff. >> Thanks for having me. I like to be here. First time on the show was 2013, VM world. So, we were inside VM world, 2013, and now outside the Intel Lounge at South by. Pretty exciting. >> So, it's high noon here. We got our sunglasses on. High noon in Texas. I'm wearing my Ray Bans, but you have your Snapchat spectacles on. What's going on? Do you like them? Give us the update. >> Yeah, I'm actually a new user of them. I'm one who likes to jump on new technology, embrace the FOMO. I kind of waited a little bit on the specs. I also wanted to have something cool to release them with. After I got them, I decided to keep them in wraps until South by Southwest, but it's kind of fun. It's interactive. They are definitely-- now that you can buy them online, I think they're going to be seen a little bit more frequent, but here at South by, just walking down the streets, people are still stopping and saying, "Hey, take a picture of me," and, "How does it work?" I've been impressed. The quality's been pretty good, and it's really easy to use. I think battery life has a long way to go but we'll see. I think battery life in everything mobile has a long way to go. >> Well, that leads to our whole theme here. We're going to have Robert Scoble on, good friend, he's been doing a lot in Virtual Reality and AR, benpar, and a lot of scientists from Intel. Really, folks, talking about this kind of movement. There's a shift going on, user behavior shifting. You're seeing actually entrepreneurship, young companies coming out and changing the world, and not changing the world to go public and some of those vanity things around money, but really around social change, and that's our theme. You have been really prolific over the past couple years, this year in particular, going out, pounding the pavement. You've been at a zillion events. We see each other all the time. Of course, we do over a hundred events last year. You see a lot of stuff. What's the pattern that you're seeing out right now? In this new world order, there's certainly a couple key trends, and the big ones are autonomous vehicles, smart cities. Median entertainment's changing. The home, Alexa, Google Home, automation, but a paradigm shift is happening. What is your take on this? >> I think it comes down to, a lot of it, I think we've all realized we want an experience. Experience is extremely important. But what does an experience mean? And how do you make an experience stand out? I think that's one of the bigger problems today, is, with so much noise, so many things that are out there, I think a lot of people-- the idea of social good, people want to know that what they're working with, what they're working on, has a greater purpose. And I think, today's world, you're connected with no limitations, no silos, and not only being connected at all times, but how can you be connected at the right time and reach the right audience. I think technology like AI and some of the things-- especially cognitive, the idea that machines are learning with us, so it's not just machines learning and leaving the humans behind, but it's humans teaching machines, machines teaching humans, and then moving forward together. I think that's some exciting change. And it's from TV entertainment to enterprise tech, to even the social media space where I do a lot of work in. >> We're here in the Intel AI Lounge. We're on 77 Rainey St, so come by if you're watching here in South by Southwest. Always on Twitter. The hashtag is Intel AI at the Cube, ping us. Brian, the whole theme is here at Intel, and at South by Southwest, is real progressive thinkers, Intel's tag line is, "Your amazing starts with Intel." You start to see, even Intel, which powered the PC revolution, servers, are starting to make chips not just for machines anymore, for the Cloud, for cars. If you just think about autonomous vehicles, for instance. You think about what that does for the younger generation coming in, the computing landscape isn't about a device anymore, it's about an integrated experience, and one of the things we've been talking about on the Cube, and we're going to talk about this year, is, my vision of counterculture. >> Right. >> Every single movement, if you go look at the 60s, the computer industry was impacted by the counterculture of the 60s. You look at the PC revolution with Steve Jobs in the 80s, that was a counterculture. We're starting to see a counterculture now around new amazing new things. >> Brian: Right. >> With software, machine learning, AI-- I mean, it's mind boggling. >> Brian: It is. >> So, what is this counterculture? Do you have any thoughts on it? Do you agree, do you have any thoughts on that? >> I like to say, when Henry Ford said, that if he would've asked then what they wanted, they would have said faster horses not cars. I think today's generation has a bigger megaphone, is not afraid to say what they want, and because now, we have all of the data, they're not afraid to share that data. We're being much more transparent, allowing people to be a little bit more authentic with what they're sharing. I think we now have the opportunity to really shape new technology based on more data than we've ever had, more understanding of our consumers than we've ever had, and I like to say the consumer's no longer dumb, therefore, we have to start really pushing the boundaries. I love the tagline with awesome in it, because I think we are now creating awesome experiences and connecting things, probably in ways we would have never imagined. >> Yeah, I mean, one of the things we've been unpacking on Silicon Angle on the Cube, is this notion of all these trends that we're watching. A couple things we can talk about-- Delete Uber campaign came out of nowhere. The company's reeling because of one blog post by a woman who worked there, accusing the CEO of having a misogynistic culture. Fake news during the election. Global communication, now network, with instant sharing. We start to see these points where the voices of the internet of people is now part and disrupting traditional sacred cows, whether it's government, play, academia, so you can almost see it if you look at it and zoom out, you can say, "Woah, a new set of amazing things are happening, good and bad." >> Yeah, for sure, and I think, also, in that same realm, where now, it's kind of this idea where-- I think for the longest time, technology was taking us further away from the human condition, and we were able to be fake online, throw up a website, and really distance ourselves from the consumer and the community. And I believe now, because people are seeing through that, and the idea where people are faking profiles, we're now coming full circle where live video and a lot of these other things are saying, "Hey, we want humans, we want-- and then we want to be able to connect and come together." And I love the idea that we don't need-- a movement doesn't require a resume, doesn't require you to live in the same location. You can come together around a shared purpose, a shared passion, leveraging technology, and you can do it anywhere in the world. Especially from a mobile perspective, it's exciting to see people being able to have their voice heard, no matter where they are in the world. >> I mean, they literally-- I hate to use the phrase democratization, but that is really what's happening here, and if you look at how politics is changing and media-- the gatekeepers used to be a few parts of the world, whether it's a group of guys or a group of media companies or whatever, they were the gatekeepers. That's now leveled. You have now a leveling of that where you have these voices. So, what's happening, in my mind, is this whole AI for social good is super interesting to me because, if you think about it, the younger generation that's coming online right now and growing up into adulthood or teens is post-9/11 generation. When you think about 9/11, what that meant for our world, and now you're seeing the whole terrorist thing, these are people who are digital natives. There's a sense of, I won't say philanthropy, but societal thinking. >> And I think a part of it is, I think everyone has always wanted the ability to make a bigger impact on the world, but they also, now, I believe-- chapter three of my upcoming book is actually the future of marketing as social good, because I believe people want to know that what they're investing their money, their time in, has a greater purpose than themselves, and I think, because they're able to be connected, and we're able to expose cultures-- I mean, my daughter says good night to Alexa when she goes to bed, as if it's a human, and she's like, "Well, I got to say good night to it." It's this idea where, we're able to share, connect, and communicate-- computers are as much a part of that as humans are online, and it's an exciting movement because I think it's going to highlight and amplify the good and we're going to start to be able to drown out the noise and the bad that, before, oftentimes had a larger microphone and now, we're able to kind of equalize that. >> This is what I like about what Intel's doing. If you think about AI for social good. First of all, Intel benefits, thanks to Intel for sponsoring the Cube here, appreciate that. Plug for Intel. But if you know what they're doing under the hood, Intel makes chips. Moore's law has been one of those things that, for the folks who don't know, look it up on Google, Moore's law. Doubling the power every x-number of months, that creates really good processing power. That powers your glasses. That powers your car. The car is now a data center. The car is now an internet device. A human might have implants, chips some day. So this notion of the power, the computing power and now software's creation an amazing thing, but if you look at what you just said, it has nothing to do with computers. >> Brian: Right. >> So, computers are enabling us to do things and be connected, but if you think about that next generation of impact, it's going to come from human beings. Human beings, part of communities. And I think, if you look at the community dynamic, which has always been kind of like, oh yeah, I'm part of a community, but now, that there's intercommunication, your glasses are doing a streaming a video, we're doing a live broadcast, Twitter's out there, people can talk all over the place. You have a self-forming governance, a network. >> Which is awesome, because now, it's connecting great people no matter where you're at, you're not limited by your resume or where you grew up, and I also think there's an element here where, if you look at collaboration-- I believe collaboration is this key for the future of innovation. I think it's the idea of chips coming together with hardware and software, working together, not only in the post-product stage, but also in the innovation stage. And also, R&D Teams working together to now make things faster and smaller and able to really push the envelope. Things like, in the glasses, having sound and video, and having it connected to my phone, and transmitting with very little human input, we're now able to get perspectives that we would have never imagined, especially from just a regular person walking the streets. >> One of the things I want to get your thoughts on, because you're in the front lines, and also, I look at you, and you're not a young guy, you're an adult, but you're part of a new generation. I was talking with some folks at Stanford just last week around algorithms, and it's kind of an AI conversation, and something popped up. There is actually an issue of gender bias in algorithms. Who would have ever thought? So, now, there's kind of like algorithms for algorithms. This is kind of this AI for social good where, we don't want to actually start bringing our biases into the algorithms, so we have to always be monitoring that. But that brings up the whole point of-- Okay, we're living in a world of first time opportunities and problems and challenges. In the old days in the tech, we knew what the processes were: automated accounting software, automate this, automate some IT department, with unknown technology. And the technology would come out, like Intel and others-- now, we have unknown processes and problems, and known technology developing faster. So, what that's going to require is the human involvement, the communities to be very agile. >> Without question. Not only embrace change, but you also have to look at communities now where, I don't believe we are doing things massively different as humans today than we were years ago, we just now have more transparency and more exposure and access to all of our lives, and I think, with that becomes, as technology exposes more of our vulnerabilities, we as humans have to start to realize that people are more vulnerable and no one's perfect, and things are migrating in a different pattern. Give me that collaboration because we have to be able to trust the algorithms, there has to be that transparency there, but we also want some version of our own privacy, but I kind of live in the space where I don't think of privacy anymore. I think of things as transparently sharing, engaging, and then, hopefully, technology amplifying that and giving us the controls. >> And that's why I like how the AI for social good that Intel's doing here at South by, because it's not just the tech, it's the humanization of it, and South by Southwest represents a global culture of tech, creative tech practitioners, tech visionaries, futurists, kind of all kind of coming together. So, give us the update so far. You've been on the streets. You've been seeing folks last night. I've been on the influencers list last night on Facebook, there's a special group there, all our friends are on there. What's the update so far at South by Southwest, what's the current vibe, how do you see it going this week, what are some of the themes you see popping out of the woodwork at South by Southwest? >> I think last year was interesting. This is my third year in a row at South by, and I present and talk on a bunch of different topics, but I think last year, it was a lot about what is VR, and VR was shiny and fancy, and the conversations now seem to be, what is VR doing, what's the content look like, and where is it going and how do I get there. That's an exciting conversation because, I think, instead of it being a shiny object, it's now VR and AR and AI, how do they intertwine into our lives. The idea of interactive-- South by Southwest Interactive, really what these tools and technology are, is connecting that interactive capabilities. It's interesting to see the different car brands here. You have Intel, you have Dell, you have IBM, but then you also have some of these other brands that are trying to push the, I'd say, the startup agenda. That's exciting, because I remember, I wasn't here for Twitter when you were here for Twitter, but Meerkat, two years ago, for me, was the darling live streaming app that launched here, and it died a year later, but I'm glad to see that innovation and the startup culture is now mixing, kind of hand-in-hand with the enterprise. >> Well, I'm going to see some of my old peeps from the Web 2.0 days, and a lot of people were like, "Oh, the Web 2.0 days didn't happen," just like the bubble burst and the internet bubble, and that burst, but it all happened. Everything that was put out there, pets online, everything online went online. Everything that was promoted in Web 2.0 is happening now, so I believe that you're seeing now the absolute operationalizing, the globalization of democratization. The technology has now come with software for that democratization and now, what's exciting is, with machine learning, data sets, and all the stuff happening with the cloud technology and 5G, it's going to get faster now. >> Which is exciting, because I think real time is a powerful element, but if you're able to get multiple senses of data, interact with machines, and ultimately push that forward at the right time, I think that collaboration of machine, human, and experience at the right time is where we start pushing new innovations. AR and VR, even some of this cognitive type learning, starts hitting to mainstream, which I'm excited about because, I think, we're getting to this culture now where we look at change and we're hopefully now embracing the opportunities rather than looking and saying what you do. I think, now we're realizing no one cares what the product is, we want to know how does it impact us and why should we care. >> Brian Fanzo, new generation, a millennial, making things happen out there, checking things out. Of course, iSocialFanz is his Twitter handle, check him out. Always great content, always out there, the canary in the coalmine, poking at the new stuff and analyzing it and sharing it, oversharing, as some people would say, but not in my book. Always great to have you on. Good to see you. Thanks for spending the time, taking off our AI Lounge. >> My pleasure. Happy South by Southwest. >> Alright, we'll be back with more Intel AI Lounge after this short break. Hashtag Intel AI. I'm John Furrier with the Cube. We'll be right back. (electronic music)